The Last Precinct ks-11

by Patricia Cornwell

  "You know, the old story about the Confederates hiding all this gold that's never been found. Well, Benny thought he was going to find it," Mr. White says, holding a glass of water as if he isn't sure what to do with it. He sets it down on the countertop without drinking a drop. "He loved being outside, that one did. I've often thought it was too bad we don't work the farm anymore because I think he would have really liked it."

  "Especially animals," Mrs. White adds. "That child loved animals more than anyone I've ever met. Just so tenderhearted." She tears up. "If a bird flew into a window, he'd go running out of the house to try and find it, and then he'd come in just in hysterics if the poor thing broke its neck, which is usually what happens."

  Benny's stepfather stares out the window, a pained expression on his face. His mother falls silent. She is fighting to hold herself together.

  "Benny had something to eat before he died," I tell them. "I think Dr. Fielding might have asked you about that to see if he possibly was given something to eat at the church."

  Mr. White shakes his head, still staring out. "No, ma'am. They don't serve food at the church except at the Wednesday-night suppers. If Benny had something to eat, I sure don't know where."

  "He didn't eat here," Mrs. White adds with emphasis. "I fixed a pot roast for Sunday dinner, and well, he never had his dinner. Pot roast was one of his favorites."

  "He had popcorn and hotdogs in his stomach," I say. "It appears he ate them not long before he died." I make sure they understand the oddity of this and that it demands an explanation.

  Both parents have baffled expressions. Their eyes light up with both fascination and confusion. They say they have no earthly idea where Benny would have gotten hold of junk food, as they call it. Lucy asks about neighbors, if perhaps Benny might have dropped by someone's house before he went into the woods. Again, they can't imagine him doing something like that, not at dinner time, and the neighbors are mostly elderly and would never give Benny a meal or even a snack without calling his parents first to make certain it was all right. "They wouldn't spoil his dinner without asking us." Mrs. White is certain of this.

  "Would you mind if I see his bedroom?" I then say. "Sometimes I get a better feel for a patient if I can see where he spent his private time."

  The Whites look a little uncertain. "Well, I guess that would be all right," the stepfather decides.

  They take us down a hallway to the back of the house, and along the way we pass a bedroom off to the left that looks like a girl's bedroom, with pale pink curtains and a pink bedspread. There are posters of horses on the walls, and Mrs. White explains that this is Lori's bedroom. She is Benny's younger sister and is at her grandmother's house in Williams-burg right now. She hasn't gone back to school yet and won't until after the funeral, which is tomorrow. Although they don't say it, I infer that they didn't think it was a good idea for the child to be here when the medical examiner dropped in out of the sky and started asking questions about her brother's violent death.

  Benny's room is a menagerie of stuffed animals: dragons, bears, birds, squirrels, fuzzy and sweet, many of them comical. There are dozens. His parents and Lucy stay outside the doorway while I walk in and pause in the middle of the room, looking around, letting the surroundings speak to me. Taped to the walls are bright pictures done in Magic Marker, again of animals, and they show imagination and a great deal of talent. Benny was an artist. Mr. White tells me from the doorway that Benny loved to take his sketchpad outside and draw trees, birds, whatever he saw. He was always drawing pictures to give people for presents, too. Mr. White talks on while his wife cries silently, tears rolling down her face.

  I am looking at a drawing on the wall to the right of the dresser. The colorful, imaginative picture depicts a man in a small boat. He wears a wide-brim hat and is fishing, his rod bent as if he might just be having some luck. Benny has drawn a bright sun and a few clouds, and in the background, on the shore, is a square building with lots of windows and doors. "Is this the creek behind your farm?" I inquire.

  "That's right," Mr. White says, hooking an arm around his wife. "It's all right, sugar," he keeps saying to her, swallowing hard, as if he might start crying, too.

  "Benny liked to fish?" Lucy's voice sounds from the hallway. "I'm just wondering, because some people who are big animal lovers don't like to fish. Or else they let everything go."

  "Interesting point," I say. "All right to look inside his closet?" I ask the Whites.

  "Go right ahead," Mr. White says without hesitation. "No, Benny didn't like to catch anything. Truth is, he just liked to go out in the boat or find him a spot on the shore. Most of the time he'd sit there drawing."

  "Then this must be you, Mr. White." I look back at the picture of the man in the boat.

  "No, I think that would be his daddy," Mr. White answers somberly. "His daddy used to go out in the boat with him. Truth is, I don't go out in the boat." He pauses. "Well, I don't know how to swim, so I just have this uneasiness about being in the water."

  "Benny was a little shy about his drawing," Mrs. White says in a shaky voice. "I think he liked to carry his fishing pole around because, well you know, he thought it made him look like other boys. I don't think he even bothered bringing bait. Can't imagine him killing even a worm, much less a fish."

  "Bread," Mr. White says. "He'd take bread, like he was going to roll it up in bread balls. I used to tell him he wasn't going to catch anything very big if all he used for bait was bread."

  I scan suits, slacks and shirts on hangers, and shoes lined on the floor. The clothing is conservative and looks as if it was picked out by his parents. Leaning against the back of the closet is a Daisy BB gun and Mr. White says Benny would shoot targets and tin cans. No, he never used the BB gun on birds or anything like that. Of course not. He couldn't even bring himself to catch a fish, both parents make that point again.

  On the desk is a stack of schoolbooks and a box of Magic Markers. On top of these is a sketchpad and I ask his parents if they have looked through it. They say they have not. Is it okay if I do? And they nod. I stand at the desk. I don't sit or in any way make myself at home in their dead son's room. I am respectful of the sketchpad and turn pages carefully, going through meticulous drawings in pencil. The first one is a horse in a pasture and it is surprisingly good. This is followed by several sketches of a hawk sitting in a bare tree, water in the background. Benny drew an old broken-down fence. He drew several snow scenes. The pad is half filled, and all of the sketches are consistent with each other until I get to the last few. Then the mood and the subject decidedly change. There is a night scene of a cemetery, a full moon behind bare trees softly illuminating tilting headstones. Next I turn to a hand, a muscular hand clenched in a fist, and then I find the dog. She is fat and homely and is baring her teeth, her hackles up, and she cowers, as if threatened.

  I look up at the Whites. "Did Benny ever talk about the Kiffins' dog?" I ask them. "A dog named Mr. Peanut?"

  The stepfather gets a peculiar expression, and his eyes brighten with tears. He sighs. "Lori's allergic," he says, as if that answers my question.

  "He was always complaining about the way they treated that dog," Mrs. White helps out. "Benny wanted to know if we could take Mr. Peanut. He wanted the dog and said he thought the Kiffins would give it up, but we couldn't."

  "Because of Lori," I infer.

  "It was an old dog, too," Mrs. White adds.

  "Was?" I ask.

  "Well, it's real sad," she says. "Right after Christmas, Mr. Peanut didn't seem to be feeling well. Benny said the poor dog was shaking and licking itself a lot, like it was in pain, you know. Then maybe a week ago it must have gone off to die. You know how animals will do that. Benny went out looking for Mr. Peanut every day. It just broke my heart. That child sure did love that dog," Mrs. White adds. "I think that's the main reason he'd go over there_to play with Mr. Peanut_and he just searched high and low for her."

  "Was this when his behavior started cha
nging?" I suggest. "After Mr. Peanut disappeared?"

  "It was about that time," Mr. White replies, and neither parent seems able to bear stepping inside Benny's room. They cling to the doorway as if holding up the walls. "You don't think he did something like that because of a dog, do you?" He is almost pitiful when he asks.

  MAYBE FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, LUCY AND I HEAD out to the woods together, leaving the parents at the house. They have not been to the deer stand where Benny was hanged. Mr. White told me he knew about the stand and has seen it many times when he has been out with his metal detector, but neither he nor his wife can bring themselves to go out there right now. I asked them if they thought other people knew the spot where Benny died_I am worried about the cu-rious having tramped around out there, but the parents don't think anybody knows exactly where Benny's body was found. Not unless the detective told people around here, Mr. White adds.

  The field where we landed is between the house and the creek, a barren acre that doesn't appear to have seen a plow in many years. To the east are miles of woods, the silo almost at the shore and jutting up rusty and dark like a tired, thick lighthouse that seems to look out across the water at The Fort James Motel and Camp Ground. As I imagine Benny visiting the Kiffins, I wonder how he got there. There is no bridge across the creek, which is about a hundred feet wide and has no outlet. Lucy and I follow the footpath through the woods, scanning everywhere we step. Tangled fishing line is caught in trees close to the water, and I note a few old shotgun shells and soft drink cans. We have walked no more than five minutes when we come upon the deer blind. It looks like a decapitated tree house that someone threw up in a hurry, with wooden rungs nailed up the trunk. A severed yellow nylon rope dangles from a crossbeam and stirs in a light cold breeze that blows off the water and whispers through trees.

  We stop and are silent as we look around. I don't see any trash_no bags or popcorn containers or any sign that Benny might have eaten out here. I get closer to the rope. Stanfield cut it about four feet from the ground and since Lucy is more athletic than I am, I suggest that maybe she could climb up into the stand and remove the rope properly. At least we can take a look at the knot on the other end. I take photographs first. We test the rungs nailed into the tree, and they seem sturdy enough. Lucy is bundled in a thick down-filled jacket that doesn't seem to slow her down as she climbs up, and she is careful as she reaches the platform, pushing and tugging boards to make sure they can bear her weight. "Seems pretty sturdy," she lets me know.

  I toss up a roll of evidence tape and she opens a Buck Tool. One thing about ATF agents, they all carry their own portable tool kits that include knife blades, screwdrivers, pliers, scissors. It goes back to needing them at fire scenes, if for no other reason, to pull nails out of the soles of your steel-reinforced boots. ATF agents get dirty. They step in all sorts of hazards. Lucy cuts the rope above the knot and tapes the ends back together. "Just a simple double half hitch," she says, dropping the rope and tape down to me. "Just a good ol' Boy Scout knot, and the end's melted. Whoever cut the end melted it so it wouldn't unravel."

  That surprises me a little. I wouldn't expect someone to bother with a detail like that if he were cutting off rope so he could hang himself with it. "Atypical," I comment to Lucy when she climbs down. "Tell you what, I'm going to be bold and take a look."

  "Just be careful, Aunt Kay. There are a few rusty nails sticking out. And watch out for splinters," she says.

  I am wondering if Benny might have adopted this old stand as a tree fort. I grip weathered gray boards one after the other and work my way up, grateful that I wore khakis and ankle boots. Inside the deer blind is a bench seat where the hunter can sit as he waits for an unsuspecting buck to wander into his sights. I test the seat by pushing against it, and it seems fine, so I sit. Benny was only an inch taller than I am, so I now have his view, assuming he came up here. I have a strong feeling that he did. Someone has been up here. Otherwise the floor of the stand would be thick with dead leaves, and it isn't at all. "You notice how neat it is up here?" I call down to Lucy.

  "It's probably still being used by hunters," she replies.

  "What hunter is going to bother sweeping out leaves at five o'clock in the morning?" From this vantage point, I have a sweeping view of the water and can see the back of the motel and its dark and slimy swimming pool. Smoke curls out the chimney of the Kiffin house. I envision Benny sitting up here and spying on life as he sketched and perhaps escaped the sadness he must have felt since his father's death. I can imagine only too well as I remember my own young life. The deer blind would be a perfect spot for a lonely, creative boy, and just a stone's throw ahead at the water's edge is a tall oak tree wearing kudzu around its trunk like spats. I can picture a red-tailed hawk sitting high up on a branch. "I think he might have drawn that tree over there," I say to Lucy. "And he had a damn good view of the campground."

  "Wonder if he saw something," Lucy floats this up to me.

  "No kidding," I reply grimly. "And someone might have been looking back," I add. "This time of year with no leaves on the trees, he might have been visible up here. Especially if someone had binoculars and had a reason to be looking over this way." Even as I say this, it occurs to me that someone might be looking at us right now. A chill touches my flesh as I climb back down. "You got your gun in that butt pack, don't you?" I say to Lucy when my feet are on the ground. "I'd like to follow this path and see where it goes."

  I pick up the rope, coil it and tuck it inside a plastic bag, which I then shove into a coat pocket. The evidence tape goes inside my satchel. Lucy and I start out on the path. We find more shotgun shells and even an arrow from bow season. Deeper into the woods we walk, the path bending around the creek, no sound but trees groaning when the wind gusts and the snap of twigs beneath our feet. I want to see if the path might take us all the way around to the other side of the creek, and it does. It is a mere fifteen-minute hike to The Fort James Motel, and we end up in woods between the motel and Route 5. Benny certainly could have walked over here after church. There are half a dozen cars in the motel parking lot, some of them rentals, and a big Honda touring motorcycle is near the Coke machine.

  Lucy and I walk toward the Kiffin house. I point out the campsite where we found the bed linens and baby carriage, and experience a combination of anger and sadness about Mr. Peanut. I don't trust the story about the dog's supposedly going off to die. I worry that Bev Kiffin did something cruel, maybe even poisoned her, and I intend to ask her what happened along with a number of other questions. I don't care how Bev Kiffin reacts. After today, I am grounded, out of commission, suspended from my profession. I can't know for a fact I will ever practice forensic medicine again. I might be fired and branded for life. Hell, I might end up in prison. I feel eyes on us as we climb the Kiffins' front-porch steps.

  "Creepy place," Lucy says under her breath.

  A face peeks out from behind curtains and then ducks out of sight when Bev Kiffin's older son catches me looking back at him. I ring the bell and the boy answers the door, the same boy I saw when I was here. He is big and heavy-set and has a cruel face speckled with acne. I can't tell how old he is, but I place him at twelve, maybe fourteen.

  "You're the lady who was out here the other day," he says to me with a hard look.

  "That's right," I reply. "Can you tell your mother that Dr. Scarpetta is here and I need a word with her?"

  He smiles as if he knows a mean secret that he thinks is funny. He stifles a laugh. "She ain't in here right now. She's busy." His eyes get harder and wander in the direction of the motel.

  "What's your name?" Lucy asks him.

  "Sonny."

  "Sonny, what happened to Mr. Peanut?" I casually ask.

  "That dumb dog," he says. "All we can figure is somebody stole her."

  I find it impossible to believe that anyone would have stolen that old, worn-out dog. In the first place, she wasn't friendly to strangers. If anything, I might have expected her to get hit by
a car.

  "Oh yeah? That's too bad," Lucy answers Sonny. "What makes you think somebody stole her?"

  Sonny gets caught on this. He gets a vapid look in his eyes and starts to tell several lies and keeps interrupting himself. "Uh, some car pulled in at night. I heard it, you know, and a door shut and she was barking, then that was it. She was gone. Zack's all tore up about it."

  "She disappeared when?" I want to know.

  "Oh, I don't know." A shrug. "Last week."

  "Well, Benny was pretty torn up about it, too," I comment, watching for his reaction.

  That cold look in his eyes again. "The kids at school called him a sissy. And he was one, too. That's why he killed himself. Everybody says so," Sonny replies with stunning callousness.

  "I thought the two of you were friends?" Lucy is getting aggressive with him.

  "He bugged me," Sonny answers. "Always coming over here to play with the dang dog. He wasn't my friend. He was Zack and Mr. Peanut's friend. I don't hang out with no sissies."

  A motorcycle engine roars and rumbles to life. Zack's face pops up in the window to the right of the front door, and he is crying.

  "Did Benny come over here last Sunday?" I come right out and ask Sonny. "After church? Maybe twelve-thirty, one o'clock. Did he eat hotdogs with you?"

  Sonny is caught again. He wasn't expecting the detail about hotdogs and now he is in a bind. His curiosity overwhelms his untruthfulness and he says, "How'd you know we had hotdogs?" He frowns as the motorcycle we saw a few minutes ago rumbles and bumps along the dirt path that leads from the motel to the Kiffin house. Whoever is on it heads right toward us, dressed in red-and-black leather, his face obscured by a dark helmet with a tinted face shield. Yet there is something familiar about the person. The realization stuns me. Jay Talley stops and gets off his motorcycle, nimbly swinging a leg over the big saddle seat.

  "Sonny, get in the house," Jay orders. "Now." He says this with cool ease, as if he knows the boy very well.

  Sonny steps back inside the house and the door shuts. Zack has vanished from the window. Jay takes off his helmet.